SO MUCH FOR the sepulchral calm of a German Sunday. On March 17th, after months of prodding from the German government and chatter in the financial press, Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank, Germany's two largest listed lenders, said that they would begin exploring a merger. A deal, both banks are at pains to add, is far from certain. If it happens, it would create Europe's third-biggest bank by assets, behind Britain's HSBC (which does most of its business in Asia) and France's BNP Paribas. It would also join together two chronic underperformers. Last year Deut-sche's return on equity, a puny 0.4%, was its first positive figure for four years. Com-merzbank's has bettered last year's anaemic 3% only once since 2011.
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